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Itasca Birds · 11-09-2013, 07:02 AM

Novices, here. We have an all electric coach and plan to tailgate, without elec and water hook ups, for a weekend at a college football game in South Carolina. We plan to use the stove/micro/furnace/residential fridge. How should we plan to use the generator? Advice/insight welcomed!

palehorse89 · 11-09-2013, 07:10 AM

Not sure here what all your inverter powers up in your Coach so...... do you have the auto genset start on your ems system? if so set it up and you will have little worries. Enjoy....

GA Navigator · 11-09-2013, 07:20 AM

We've tailgated a few times in warmer weather and ran the generator continuously for the AC. Cooler weather we get by with a couple of hours per day to recharge the house batteries. We don't usually have anything on except the residential refrigerator. I haven't tried going more than 12-14 hours without charging just because I don't want to drain my batteries down too far. Furnace blowers are power big power users.

vsheetz · 11-09-2013, 07:22 AM

All depends on the capacity of your battery bank. When dry camping before we had solar system we would usually run the genny for a couple three hours in the morning and another couple three hours in the evening. In your tailgating situation your power usage may be such that you need to run the genny mid day as well. Just watch your battery voltage and run the genny as needed.

jeryan59 · 11-10-2013, 01:55 PM

As previously stated, if you have an EMS system set it to auto start, otherwise, I would monitor my battery usage in the morning for a couple of hours to see what you are using. Once you know that and depending on kick off time, I would make sure your batteries are fully charged prior to you leaving for the game. If you are spending the night at the stadium or race event, I start my generator at bed time and let it run all night, I run a box fan or one of my a/c fans to drown out some of the outside noise for a more restful nights sleep. After morning coffee is brewed, I shut down generator unless someone is using high demand appliances (curling irons, flat irons, hair dryers, ect.) Then I repeat. Good luck, worse thing is everything shuts down until you manually restart generator if you don't have EMS, usually TV is first thing that I notice when it does shut down.

Rodneykrantz · 11-10-2013, 01:59 PM

What game are you going to and where are you staying?

Roger G · 11-10-2013, 07:24 PM

We dry camp every home game. We have a residential fridge but gas everywhere else. If the AC is on, the generator must be on. We run the genny for a couple of hours in the morning for coffee, hair dryer , microwave, and battery charging. We run the TV and satellite off the batteries all day without any problems. If it's cool enough to run the furnace at night, I might run the genny for an hour or two before bed but otherwise don't crank it until the next morning. I take a Honda 2000 along to most games for outside fans in warm weather and crock pots. The Honda will run about 8 hours on a gallon of gas and is much quieter than the big Onan.

Iangolf · 11-13-2013, 09:03 PM

Check the local rules concerning generator use. For example if we tailgate at LSU (hard to do since I am a Gator however niece is attending LSU) they require all generator exhaust to be vented above your roof line...i.e. Genturi. If you do not have one you will need to pick one up before you get there. In general we run the generator at night while sleeping so we can run both A/C units. Little sticky in LA.

Roger G · 11-14-2013, 09:18 AM

The Genturi is a must with me even if I'm parked by myself away from other campers. On a still night, the exhaust can and will settle under your RV and make the CO2 sensor go off, usually about 2am.

vanbuskirk · 11-15-2013, 04:45 PM

We are Penn State tailgaters! I ditto the comment that you need to check if the site requires an exhaust pipe. My husband fabricated ours out of pvc for a fraction of retail cost. We also carry an inverter which is our primary source of electric for our outside lights, crock pots, coffee maker, etc. We very seldom fire up the onboard except for charging our batteries.

Bug512 · 11-16-2013, 04:53 AM

We have tailgated (dry camped) at over 50 NASCAR races along with music festivals and JETS NFL Games. The NASCAR races along with the music festivals can be as much as one week "camped" at the venue with no hookups.

Most people start up their generators in the morning to cook breakfast, shower and get ready for the day, the same goes for the evening hours. This runtime should be plenty to top off the charge on your house batteries.

Make sure you start the weekend with a full tank of fuel and full freshwater and empty black and gray water tanks.

Water conservation is a must, no long showers (NAVY showers are the norm when dry camping). You will be amazed on how much little water you really need.

There are some places that have a quiet (no generator) time but that is the rarity. Music festivals are pretty much 24/7. When we attend Bonnaroo in June the Generator 24 hours a day from Thursday until Monday morning. (I do check the oil once a day!)

Like other posters have mentioned, a Genturi is a must. Link here.

Here is some more info on dry camping that I wrote on another message board. Link here

Let us know if you have any questions.